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Sunday, 22 October 2017

Top Ten Tools For Us Writery Types, by Dan Metcalf

I like making a list or
two so I thought for my ABBA offering this month I'd lay out the top
ten things I need to write. This list is entirely subjective of
course and I'd love to hear what you consider an absolutely essential
item for your writing life.

Laptop – I'd
love to say that I can get away with a pad of A4 paper and a pen,
but the reality of life is that work has to be typed on a computer,
laid out in a certain way and increasing, submitted to publishers
electronically too. I'm also a tad reliant on websites and databases
for research (though nothing beats a library for real research!).
Mine is an 11.5” ASUS
netbook, which does all I ask of it. The memory is running out
now, to which I have bodged a solution by whacking in a cheap SD
card in the side and occasioanlly importing stuff over to it. I have
two cloud backup services too; ASUS Webstorage (came with the
computer) and google drive. I'm also sticking stuff on a USB memory
stick because I know from bitter experience that YOU CAN NEVER BACK
UP ENOUGH.

Notebooks – I
covet these little things. Even though I have more than enough at
home, waiting to be filled, I still find myself wondering into
Waterstones or Paperchase and stroking the spines of the lovely
blank tomes available. In a perfect world I would have a
subscription to moleskine or
field notes to deliver a
parcel to my house every few months full of the bleeders, but unless
I suddenly hit Pullman-esque standards of success, I'll make do with
whatever comes to hand. And in all truth, paper is paper. A 50p
jotter from the post office works just as well as an ornate
faux-leather ideaspad.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/3452943573

Mechanic pencils –
Okay, I'm going to say this here and now – mechanical/propelling
pencils are better. Just BETTER. Better than a pen (ballpoint or
fountain) and better than your regular dead-tree pencil. For one,
pencils provide a transience that I like – anything I write with
them can be deleted or edited immediately. For two, the propelling
pencil has a clarity that I love. Because they have small graphite
sticks, you get a fixed width line instead of a thin and pointy line
which then devolves into a stubby grey mess further down the page.
Also: clickable. None of that pencil sharpener/whittling with a
craft knife nonsense. (Only downside I find is that the plastic
variety are disposable and bad for the environment – if this
bothers you, kindly have a whipround and
buy me one of these, because I get through heaps of the plastic
Bic jobbies.

suzyq212 https://www.flickr.com/photos/88722241@N00/

Tea – You may
think I'm being flippant here, but I do drink tonnes of the stuff. I
have had to switch to decaffinated which is frankly just as nice and
means you can drink more of it without having to jog off the excess
energy every few hours. Brands don't matter, no matter what that
woollen monkey off the telly tells you. I also have a back-up of
Green Tea with Lemon which provides the taste without the need for
milk. I'm drinking it now. Slurp. Yum yum.

A flask – hows
this for a productivity hack? My 1000ml
stainless steel thermos flask from Asda has served me well. I
fill it with hot water in the morning and then bring it to my desk
so I can work. This is absolute genius in two ways – One, I don't
have to leave my desk and interrupt the flow when I'm writing and
two, it saves on your electricity bill by not popping up to boil the
kettle every 30 minutes. (But what about milk? I hear you cry;
that's where the aforementioned green tea with lemon comes in to
play) Try it and thank me later.

Mini wireless
mouse – Not essential, but I'm one of these fogies that gets in a
tizz when trying to use the touchpad on my laptop.
This little beauty has a small USB plugin neatly hidden in the
battery compartment which can take out and stick in your laptop. The
AAA battery powered mouse then connects automatically. Soooo much
easier (and dirt cheap).

A mug – okay I
realise that now three of these 'writing' tips are beverage based,
but if you think about it, doesn't the quality of the mug affect the
quality of the drink? And therefore the quality of your mood? And
therefore the quality of your writing? Of course it does. You know
it makes sense... My favourite writing mug is this
fella from the Literary Gift Company.

Sounds – In an
ideal world I would sit in silence and type away to my heart's
content but as we all know, we do not live in an ideal world (for
proof, check out who leads the world nowadays.). We live in a world
where phones, radios and washing machines bleep at you throughout
the day. We live in a world where my delightful sons shoot Nerf guns
at each other outside my office window. This world needs white noise
and I choose http://www.noisli.com/.
You can set the ambient sounds however you wish and block out the
rest of reality. I recommend a blend of a crackling fire and
thunderstorms.

Bullet Journal –
Time management is very much a work in progress for me, and has been
ever since I left school. I've still not cracked it but the closest
I ever come is when I keep up my
bullet journal. Everything goes into this; story ideas, first
drafts, appointments, etc. The buttet journal system helps to keep
them all in check. I have tried using evernote and my phone's diary,
but somehow it doesn't work for me (but am always open to better
time management solutions – leave 'em in the comments) (oh, you
don't need to buy an official journal either – I prefer a thick
blank A4 pad but loads of people work out of moleskines)

My brain – I'd
be lost without it. No one else's will do, either. It's my own or
nothing. In fact, out of all of these items on the list, this is
probably the most important, because all you need to create a story
is your brain and a wee bit of motivation.

What did I miss? Leave
your suggestions below.

Dan :¬)

Dan Metcalf's most
recent book is Codebusters from Bloomsbury. He is also experimenting
with Wattpad stories for a YA audience, so take a look HERE.

13 comments:

I like to work at the library when I can. I don't get distracted there and they usually have free wifi. I used to work in a nearby cafe, where I could order tea(with lemon, thanks, NOT milk!) or lunch or both. Someone else would cook for me(perhaps this will make a number 11 - no getting up to cook or wash dishes). But the cafe, where I wrote a book and many articles and short stories has been replaced by a wine bar! No food except a couple of evenings a week when they offer a set dinner, which I assume is cooked elsewhere and delivered. Probably because they welcome dogs and you can't mix food and animals, due to health laws. I love dogs, but I'd rather be able to buy a meal. No longer a place for writing, alas!

On-line timers (or kitchen timers, but they keep breaking.) Set it for an hour and then work. And then go and do washing up/load washing machine or whatever. These breaks give important thinking/unconscious mulling time, I find.

A garden. Suddenly leaving writing to rush out and turn compost heap, plant seedlings, water or whatever you find needs doing. Provides some fresh air and more time to think.

I LOVE those propelling pencils, and use them all the time. Aren't they recyclable?

I'm a collector of notebooks too, but the ones I use most for writing are the tiny brown Moleskine ones (they come in packs of 3) for handbag when travelling, and ordinary shorthand notebooks when at home. The prettier notebooks are, the harder I find it to use them.

Lovely post. Odd but I can't bear propelling pencils... their marks have no character. When my pencil gets blunt, I pause to sharpen it and that gives me time to think. I only use black pencils that I buy at the V&A. The wood is black too so I enjoy the curls of the sharpening process and the pencils have a little jewel on the end. Oh we all slightly mad... in any case, whatever we do...

Ooh excellent Susan. I think the timer thing is known as the Pomodorro technique, after the fella who started it, and wrote a book about it, had a kitchen timer in the shape of a tomato (or pomodorro in italian!)